Time of home at the end of the journey
I perform power when I float, curiously, in an ocean
of nations or f(r)ictions. I perform nyumbani when I shift
between stavelines and habitats, the crests of a password.
Names spiral into a panoply. Nyumbani releases ni to shape
a structure instead of inhabiting. Breath, tissue, cell cycle.
Zeno’s arrow reaching across timezones. Plucking a string
of characters. Balancing on the periphery, inching closer
semitone by semitone. Keys turn nervously. News is made
by the tilt of my shadow’s head towards another building.
Different home. The home of time is the journey—the safari.
From Arabic safar. Soon my shadow will enter my skin and
re(p)lace me. I agreed to this. I perform power when I cue
every note unwilling to answer, reading too close to gleam
and grit, syncopating time. How she contains and lets go,
allowing herself to be translated. Mwisho. Scenic extremity.
Pearled around the edge with compulsion. Mwishowe.
Confounds. Releases.
This is happening inside her.
Serenading the real question.
* The title is adapted from ‘16. Born to a Law’ in Shailja Patel’s Migritude (Kaya Press, 2010) and is described there as the literal translation of Kiswahili ‘saa ya kinyumbani ya mwisho wa safari’, meaning ‘local time at destination’.
of nations or f(r)ictions. I perform nyumbani when I shift
between stavelines and habitats, the crests of a password.
Names spiral into a panoply. Nyumbani releases ni to shape
a structure instead of inhabiting. Breath, tissue, cell cycle.
Zeno’s arrow reaching across timezones. Plucking a string
of characters. Balancing on the periphery, inching closer
semitone by semitone. Keys turn nervously. News is made
by the tilt of my shadow’s head towards another building.
Different home. The home of time is the journey—the safari.
From Arabic safar. Soon my shadow will enter my skin and
re(p)lace me. I agreed to this. I perform power when I cue
every note unwilling to answer, reading too close to gleam
and grit, syncopating time. How she contains and lets go,
allowing herself to be translated. Mwisho. Scenic extremity.
Pearled around the edge with compulsion. Mwishowe.
Confounds. Releases.
This is happening inside her.
Serenading the real question.
* The title is adapted from ‘16. Born to a Law’ in Shailja Patel’s Migritude (Kaya Press, 2010) and is described there as the literal translation of Kiswahili ‘saa ya kinyumbani ya mwisho wa safari’, meaning ‘local time at destination’.
March 2025
Fleur Lyamuya Beaupert’s poems appear in Rabbit, Sonance (Red Noise Collective), #EnbyLife, Australian Poetry Journal, Resilience (Mascara Literary Review anthology) and elsewhere. Their prose can be found in Speculative City’s Afrofuturism issue and Science Write Now’s Disability & the Body issue. Fleur is a recipient of the Charles Rischbieth Jury Poetry Prize and a shortlist honoree for the 2024 Dzanc Books Poetry Prize. They are based on unceded Wangal land.
Art: Claire Tang, Pushing Up Daisies. Oil on canvas.